Paradox
by KathainBowen
Summary: You knew and you let it happen anyway. She...." Rodney's breath hitched in his chest as he bit back the lump in his throat. "She didn't have to die. But you didn't stop it. Worse. You MADE it happen." - Tag to "The Last Man" ONESHOT


**PARADOX**

Summer had come back to New Jersey once more, leaving the air hot and dry, with a strange snap to it. A faint haze hung over the afternoon sky, as a thunderhead loomed tall and towering in the sky, dwarfing the tall trees about the cemetery. The air had a sort of tension to it, an electric spark crying out that something terrible would happen that afternoon, and rightly so. Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay had been itching for a fight as much as he'd been hoping the closing storm cloud would just let loose with the lightning and thunder.

The funeral had been small and awkward. She hadn't any family so to speak, to come. He had tried rather desperately the last few weeks of her all too short life to locate any actual blood relations to no avail. In the end, Rodney had given up the search entirely to spend her last days at her side, reading to her from their research journals, babbling inanely about new discoveries and lesson plans for the next quarter, even though he knew, after everything her body had been through, she likely couldn't hear him. It had brought him comfort to try, even if it hadn't been successful. As such, her funeral was poorly attended by a priest, a few of his more promising students, that sick, perverted bastard in the back row, and McKay himself.

Rodney had struggled to make it through the eulogy that he had written himself. He bumbled through the words, feeling uncomfortable under the knowing and piercing stare of the asshole who had dared to show his face after everything. After all, Rodney himself had seen the letter and could not deny its authenticity, its contents still sending cold, bitter fire licking through the physicist's heart and mind. No matter how hard McKay tried to push the letter from his mind, to focus in on the grave matter at hand- no pun intended- he felt his gaze continually lift to meet those hazel eyes in the back of the chapel, feel the rage still rolling through his every nerve.

Rodney swallowed and forced down the pain and the bitter anger that seethed within; now wasn't the time for that. No, for, once he had finished, the physicist stepped down from the pulpit. He sat and tried to listen intently to the words of the priest as he spoke of how short and precious life is, instructing the tiny gathering to savor every moment of it. The prayers fell upon deaf ears. Rodney could think only of her last days, could hear only the rasping whistle that had been in her lungs when she stated quite firmly- or, as firmly as someone in her pathetic state could- that there was to be no heroic measures for her, not this time. She had been so brave at the end, to make the choice to just let go of her suffering. This was time for her, not time for his hatred and anger when there would be plenty of time for that later.

The physicist had never been a religious man, least of all a good, God-fearing Catholic. And neither had she. In fact, Rodney was damned certain she had been an atheist at the time of her passing. Yet, when the father blessed the eucharist and began to administer the sacrament, Rodney rose and took his, ignoring it when the goddamned sonovabitch brushed into him, when Rodney turned to return to his seat. McKay balled his hands into tight fists but sat quietly, masking his irritation by kneeling on the pew and stuffing his face into his clasped hands in feigned prayer. The traitor slipped past him once more, and, for a horrible second, Rodney thought the asshole might join him, before the shadow passed over him and to the back of the chapel once more.

And, then, just like that, it was over. The priest closed the mass with a simple prayer and blessed both the attendants of the sparse service, as well as the solemn, plain urn on display. After that, Rodney rose to collect the urn and take the ashes. He hadn't decided yet what to do with them, and attested to that fact when the priest inquired softly. She had told him she wanted to go to Atlantis before she died, and, while Rodney desperately wanted to disperse her last earthly remains in the vast Lantean sea, the physicist wasn't certain he would be welcome at either the SGC or the ancient city-ship anymore, let alone with such a grim cargo. Worse, Rodney wasn't certain if he could make the journey mentally or emotionally anymore after everything that had happened.

It had all started with a letter, one stupid sheet of paper written with a haphazard chicken scratch that McKay would have recognized anywhere. A simple letter had set everything into motion and put both the dearly departed and Dr. Rodney McKay on the path that had brought him to that somber service. It seemed incredible to believe that the folded bit of tattered, weathered parchment with a few paragraphs in black ink that rested in Rodney's breast pocket at the moment had caused it all. Yet, it had. There was no denying it now that he looked back on everything that had unfolded.

Rodney thanked the priest and conceded that he would continue to consider having the ashes interred on holy ground. Although, admittedly, McKay knew he could not ever do that. In fact, unless her family suddenly came calling one day out of the blue, Rodney knew her remains would probably travel with him as long as he lived. Even if her relations did show up one day, the physicist had already resolved to hand over the urn filled up to the brim- with ashes from his fireplace most likely, but definitely not hers.

After that, when Rodney turned to leave, he noticed that, while the students had filed out, the jerk in the back remained. The physicist had been hoping rather desperately to be able to just slip out again without having to face the asshole ever again in his life. Yet, there was no escaping it; those hazel eyes were focused intently upon McKay. The physicist heaved a tired sigh before striding towards the exit, his head hung. Perhaps if he didn't make eye contact...?

"Rodney," that bastard called softly, shattering any hopes of getting out of this.

The physicist froze in his place, cradling the urn almost lovingly to his chest. "No."

"Rodney, we have to talk," the man implored, his voice almost pained and begging, a mockery of her passing considering what he had done.

McKay gave a curt shake of his head, struggling to contain himself in the face of that bastard. "Y'know, for the first time in our rather sordid relationship, I think I can honestly say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I have absolutely, positively _nothing _to say to you."

"Rodney, don't do this," the asshole pressed, stepping out in front of him and blocking the scientist's escape path from the tiny, suddenly claustrophobic church. "Not after everything..."

"Especially after everything," McKay snarled venomously. "After everything _you _did."

The physicist went to neatly side step around this jerk, a man who had once been one among his closest of friends, when the bastard's hand shot out. He grabbed Rodney by the upper arm, jerking and squeezing sharply. McKay spun about hotly on his heel, biting back the instinctive urge to just bludgeon the offending man with the satisfying heft of the urn. Yet, when he turned and saw those eyes, those haunted, hazel eyes, hidden beneath a mop of tossled hair, and that pale face, Rodney just couldn't bring himself to beat the man senseless like he deserved.

"Rodney, we need to talk about this. You need to know the truth," the man pled.

McKay glanced down at the basic, pewter urn in his hold, and he shook his head glumly. "No. We don't. This is all your fault, you know that?"

"You don't know what happened," the bastard argued almost uncharacteristically timidly.

"No. I don't know," Rodney conceded. "But you _knew_ this was going to happen," he hissed viciously, obviously delivering a cutting blow, judging by the way the jerk grimaced. "You knew and you let it happen anyway. She..." Rodney's breath hitched in his chest as he bit back the lump in his throat. "She didn't have to die. But you didn't stop it. Worse. You _made _it happen."

There were tears rolling down his cheeks now. Rodney had been quite careful the last two weeks to save his tears for the privacy of his now lonely and empty home. He hadn't wanted her to see him crying. He wanted her last days to be peaceful and filled with the love she had never seemed to have in her life. After she died, Rodney refused to show the growing grief inside of him in front of his students and his meager family. He had kept it bottled up and hidden for so long that, when faced with this traitor, it all threatened to spill out with the looming thunderstorm that brewed overhead with deep rumbles.

The man pressed something into Rodney's hand, a heavy envelope stretched out to its limits by what the physicist recognized to be a crystalline data store from Atlantis. "This... this is the truth, Rodney, I swear it. It's... just watch it. You'll understand. Please? You have to watch this, Rodney."

The physicist shook his head. "I don't have to do anything for you anymore. I thought I had made that more than abundantly clear, Sheppard."

And, with that, McKay shoved his once commanding officer out of the way and stepped into the rain.

xxxx

It was fifteen... no sixteen years after Jennifer passed away. Jeannie had long since given up on me, both in trying to help me and in trying to get me to give up on you. Both Jennifer and Jeannie thought it was a lost cause to waste my life on, but, you know me, always sacrificing for the greater good and all. Maybe I did.

I was teaching when she walked into my life. She didn't look like anything special, really. Just another snot-nosed brat who had wasted her high school career before being relegated to community college. Erica Sahls. She sat in the back and proceeded to put her just put her feet up on the desk and read from some old, beat up paperback book. Can you believe it? She read right through my lecture. Kept taking out this scrap of paper, too, and scanning it. Damnedest thing, though. At the end of class, I gave a pop quiz just to see if I couldn't get her out of my class right off the bat, just drop the course week 1, day 1. She just rolled her eyes, did the quiz in record time, and handed it in like it was boring her. Walked out of the class maybe ten- twenty minutes before the other students even finished. I half expected her answers to be snide comments and jokes, maybe a couple of doodles. But, Erica surprised me. Passed with flying colors.

I started giving a quiz at every lecture just to see if I couldn't get rid of her. Every lecture, she dozed or read trashy novels through, occasionally checking some folded up piece of paper that she constantly used as a bookmark. And, every lecture, she passed without an ounce of effort, yawning when she handed it in like she was taunting me, challenging me. And maybe Erica was.

I tried an experiment around week four or five. I slipped a different quiz in the middle of the pile just for her, made sure to keep the count right so it would fall on her, so I threw quantum right in her face with a little it of wormhole theory at the end for kicks. The other students were struggling along with Newtonian physics, so, in retrospect, maybe I had been too obvious. But Erica had it coming. At the end of class, she turned in her paper, and I thought I had her judging by the rather pointed "kicked puppy" look she had on her face when she brought the quiz down. Still long before the other students, but longer than usual. But, when she got down to my desk, she rolled her eyes at me and handed the quiz in.

I waited until she was _long _gone before even thinking about looking at her paper. When all the other students had finished and left, _then _I took a peek. Little jerk had pulled a fast one on me. She had somehow managed to swap her quiz with another student's. Some poor schmuck to her left evened up with the quantum and wormhole stuff. Erica had even copied down the problems from the quiz I had meant to her have and answer those on the back of the quiz she'd actually gotten. She actually got all of the problems right. I was so shocked, I almost didn't see the cute little note she'd left on the back of the quiz.

_Dr. McKay- Cute, but unappreciated. I don't know what kind of sick game you're playing, but don't mess with me. -E._

xxxx

"Did you tell him?"

Brig Gen John Sheppard shrugged sadly as he climbed into the passenger seat of the dark Jeep belonging to none other than the downright ancient seeming Gen Jack O'Neill. He didn't have an answer to the question, really. What more could he say or do aside from try? Just a few months ago, Rodney had called up SGC furious, demanding to speak directly to Sheppard. Apparently, the physicist had found the letter and had a bit of fury to vent on someone, anyone. Sheppard had tried to bring some peace, some comfort to McKay, already more than painfully aware of what Rodney had to be going through. After all, John had known for years now that she would die. After that, Rodney had decided he wanted nothing more to do with Sheppard or the Stargate program.

"Well?"

Sheppard gave a half-hearted roll of his eyes. "I tried." John shook his head and gazed out at the rain the continued to hammer the cemetery, through it to the far side of the parking lot as a silver Smart Car peeled out. "He wouldn't listen."

It had hurt to even try to explain, but Sheppard had to. He had known the moment he set eyes upon Rodney in the church that, for the sake of the friendship they had once shared, he had to try. There wasn't much time left now to make easy, subtle progressions towards trying to patch up their friendship now. No. It was all in or nothing.

"Would you if you were in his shoes?" O'Neill inquired oddly.

Sheppard thought for a moment. There was no question about it. His letter had put her on the path towards Rodney McKay, steering her directly towards him. If it hadn't been for Sheppard's meddling, who knew how different their lives would have been? But, Sheppard hadn't any choice. Rodney's own instructions had been quite clear.

John sighed with another shrug. "Probably not."

"So, can you blame him?"

Sheppard watched McKay's Smart Car disappear from sight down the road and back towards Red Bank. "Not really."

"Think he'll watch it?" O'Neill asked.

"I hope so."

xxxx

I was talking to one of the other professors during lunch about her one day, and, it turns out, they had taught her before and refused to teach any class with her on the roster. Turns out other teachers had played the same game with her, and her little warning wasn't just a warning. Erica had apparently incited a few little student revolts during her short college career.

I tried to find out some background on Erica Sahls, but no luck. See, granted her unique aptitude and knowledge in theoretical physics, I had assumed that she had to have a history or maybe family in the field, but possibly not. I checked into her with admin. She just registered one day, out of the blue, and set to work in classes. The registrar, bunch of imbeciles, refused to give out any of her records aside from transcripts. And none of the other professors seemed to care aside from the fact that she instilled damn near student revolt at least once a semester.

Apparently she was just one of those kids who was too smart for their own good. She just needed a way to channel all that brain of hers and put it to use. I looked over her work on wormhole theory on the quiz and found some interesting speculation that even Carter would have appreciated a good look at. But, when I tried to talk with Erica at the end of class, she just waltzed out with a little wave, mocking me. I gave up with her, pegged her for a lost cause. She passed the class without batting an eye, and I anticipated never seeing her again after that.

It wasn't until winter break that it changed. It was the day before New Years, and, while the campus was officially closed for the holidays, I needed to pick up a few journal articles I had left in the library. The college had been closed for a week already, but I couldn't wait for January. I went back up to the campus and... she was there. She was just sitting there, in the back of the Stacks, reading. And, from the looks of it, Erica had been there for a while. She had a pile of texts with her. When she saw me, she took out that folded up piece of paper, checked it again, and rather quickly stuffed it in her pocket.

I asked her what she was doing there, and she just laughed. Told me she had some light reading to catch up on. Erica was trying to be funny, but she coughed, and she just sounded so... so sick. Looked it, too. Her eyes were all red and puffy. She looked contagious and flu-ish. I told her to go home, get some rest, that whatever she was reading could wait until a better time when she wasn't- I don't know- trespassing.

She laughed, said I should leave her the hell alone. Sad it was none of my goddamned business. So... I did. I left her there. Can you blame me? I mean, she was a horrid person, rude and obnoxious. Cocky and smartass. Kind of reminded me of you, Sheppard.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something very wrong with her, with all of it. I spent most of the rest of winter break thinking about her just sitting there in the library surrounded by books. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me, the more... _wrong _it seemed. I mean, of all the places for her to trespass, why there? The library had a dismal selection of books at best, all outdated and just crumbling at the touch. Only the journals were up to date. It was like she was reading out of pleasure. I tried not to think about it; after all, Erica was just a thorn in my side that had been recently alleviated.

At least, that's what I thought until the first week of the next semester. I was bringing back a few journals to the library when I heard someone just hacking up a lung somewhere in the back of the stacks. When I went to investigate, there she was, all huddled up. Erica. She look liked... well... she looked like hell. Definitely sick and definitely worse than when I saw her just a few days earlier. Practically coughing up a lung, shivering, feverish. She could hardly hold her book open, let alone focus on it.

I told her she should go see a doctor, but Erica just kept on dodging the subject. Made me wish Jennifer was still alive to help me convince her. She shared some rather nasty words, and, you know me and my temper... so, I left her. Said some of my own, choice words to her, too.

When I left, Erica must have thought I couldn't hear her, but I did. She said that it wouldn't matter anyway soon.

I couldn't sleep that night. Couldn't work. Couldn't do anything right. I just kept thinking about Erica in the library. I mean, I'm a prick, but even I didn't feel quite right leaving the little snot there like that considering how sick she looked.

Finally, after a while, I figured that, if you were thousands of years into the future, you could wait a little longer for me. I packed up and went back down to the library at maybe two in the morning, hoping that she'd have moved on. I don't know what I was looking for when I went back for Erica, but I'm glad I did. She was still there, curled up in her corner in the back of the Stacks, barely conscious. Her lips were a sort of blue color. She was... there was this kind of wheezing noise, when she breathed. Kind of a whistle.

I got her to the hospital as fast as I could. I mean, there wasn't any campus security the late except for a couple of partrolmen to help, but she and I managed. She argued the whole damn time in between coughing fits. Just like you, said she didn't need any doctors. Just needed to sleep it off. I told her she could argue it with the voodoo quacks when we got there. She kept fighting me with the entire way, but she was just too weak to push me off like she wanted to. Kept trying to get me to take her back to the Stacks. And, Christ, she was just so hot to the touch, definitely feverish. I just kind of threw her in the backseat and took off. Midway through the drive, Erica just stopped talking. She had passed out.

There were so many questions when we got to the ER. Who was she? Who was her medical proxy? What happened? How long had she been sick like this? Was she allergic to anything? What was her medical history? Christ, Sheppard, I could easily prattle off maybe a thousand different gate addresses for two different galaxies and describe the climate and indigenous people, define pi to a hundred decimals without batting an eye, list off dozens of Ancient inventions, but I couldn't tell them anything about a student who had sat in my class for an entire semester.

I tried to explain the situation and get some information from them, but, since I didn't have any legal connection to her, the doctors couldn't tell me anything about her condition. So I waited. I waited for maybe three days in the waiting room of the ER. The nurses took pity on me. They promised to let me know if she was going to be released any time soon, but, judging from the hang-dog looks they were giving me, Erica wasn't walking out of the hospital for a while. I feel into a routine of stopping by the ER before dawn, teaching my morning classes, checking back in the with nurses at around midday, running my afternoon and evening classes and labs, checking in with the ER in the evening before hauling my carcass home to bed. Lather. Rinse. Repeat for a little over two weeks.

Two weeks.

When I first brought Erica to the hospital, I was convinced it was just a really bad case of the flu. The longer the days went on, the more and more I knew that wasn't the case. I started bringing more and more of my work to the hospital with me, sitting and working on some way to bring you back all the while waiting for someone to tell me something, anything about how Erica was doing.

When no one would tell me anything after two weeks of just sitting on my hands and waiting, I decided to... well... take matters into my own hands. I negotiated with one of the nurses I knew better from the staff, bribed her. Best money I ever spent in a hospital, really. She gave me a room number, but it was all I needed.

I ended up finding her room in the ICU. Snuck in. Never, ever tell a genius they _can't _do something. They'll just find a way to do it and maybe even do it twice as hard. Christ, that sounds suggestive. But it's true. It didn't take much effort for me to slip into the ICU and find her.

God, she looked... she looked dead. She was all pale and almost wax looking. Still. Listless. Quiet. And tiny. Just fragile. I had always seen her under sweaters and this big, ugly jacket. But, in a hospital gown, there was no hiding how scrawny she was. There were a million tubes running to her. One of those nose cannulae things. IVs.

I must have made a sound or something, because she woke up. She couldn't talk, just made a sort of croaking sound and waved at her throat. I got her some water and a straw for her to drink, but she didn't thank me. She just sank back with this sad look on her face.

I asked her what was wrong with her, and she didn't tell me. Instead, Erica told me she would have been better off if I'd left her there in the Stacks. I pressed. You know me. Can't take no for an answer. I needed to know what had happened. Erica wouldn't tell me. So, I found her chart and started to read.

PCP. Pneuomocystis pneumonia. Pneumonia.

I pressed, shouting at her, yelling at her, even though we were in the ICU and even though she was still in seriously bad shape. For someone who was as goddamned smart as Erica was, she was certainly an idiot. If she knew she was that sick, she should have been taking care of herself, watching out for things like this. It could have killed her. Hell, it had damn near killed her. And she had just sat there, reading right through it like she was just going to get better without any care.

She shook her head and told me she wasn't waiting to get better.

And I knew. She was waiting to die.

xxxx

Why?

Rodney had been asking himself that for so long. Why did Sheppard do what he did with the knowledge he had if he was just going to let her die like that? He could have done anything, maybe even stopped her from contracting the disease long before she met Rodney. Sheppard could have done so many things differently to change the past after rocketing back to Atlantis from thousands of years in the future.

McKay went home and set the urn upon the mantle, overlooking the whiteboards and drafting tables filled with papers and notes before turning to survey the place. It was exactly as it was the morning she left that world. There was still a bit of disarray around the couch that wasn't like the usual mess, a distinctive and alien jumble caused when the paramedics and medical examiner came to pick up her body. Her blanket remained draped over the back of the couch from when they had so carelessly pulled it back from her; Rodney just hadn't the heart to pack it up yet. Her personal effects were still about the apartment, still exactly where she had left them, all this a bittersweet testimony to tragically short life she had lived.

He sat down on the couch and stared at the envelope Sheppard had handed him before giving it a fierce chuck across the room. McKay didn't want any answers from that arrogant, self-centered asshole. Not anymore. There was a time when McKay actually vaguely valued Sheppard's opinion, but that time had long since passed. Now, he didn't care at all.

His doctor would have argued that McKay should be taking it easy, that he shouldn't reach for the bottle of spiced rum she had asked him to buy for her in the end. They had shared a few rounds together what seemed like days ago, but Rodney knew had really been weeks ago when she had been well enough to sit up and make the conscious decision to go so blatantly against medical advice. His doctor would be scolding Rodney right now if he saw the generous libation the physicist poured himself and the giant, scalding swigs he took before pouring another. He wasn't supposed to drink anymore based off of what his doctor said. Worse. Just a few years ago, the old Rodney McKay would have agreed that alcohol was to be avoided at all costs for fear of repeat performances of age old shames. Yet, there he was, drowning his sorrows with her rum until he felt delicious drunken blur settle over him before setting the glass in the sink.

He opened the top desk drawer and picked up the Glock in loving, waiting hands.

xxxx

After so long at Atlantis, and after you, Teyla, Ronon, Sam, Jen, I couldn't imagine anyone just crawling into a corner to die. I demanded to know why. As it turns out, my little friend was homeless. She worked here and there on campus, did odd jobs where she could. She was using both the work and the tuition as a cover for her to get in at night and have a safe place to sleep, but it wasn't enough to buy her scripts either. Hell of a choice to make. Die on the streets. Die in the Stacks. Either way, she was going to die.

I felt like such an ass.

Neither of us talked after that. She started to drift back to sleep, so I went home. I didn't know what to say or to do. Jennifer was the last person I'd been around who had died from a prolonged, difficult illness... and it was like facing the same thing all over again.

Maybe you rubbed off on me too much, with your whole "leave no man behind unless it's John Sheppard" complex, but I couldn't just turn away. Yes, she was just a student, and, yes, I had already overstepped my bounds as a professor, but I couldn't just leave her like that. I needed to do something... anything.

I spent the night researching, reading, eating up everything I could on pneumonia. I even called Carson on the subject. At first, when I told him it was PCP, he thought I was joking, or that I had contracted it myself. Carson even laughed at me, the cheeky bastard. Granted, I had phoned _extremely _long distance at a time when he knew it was terribly early in the morning here, so it must have sounded like a really bad joke. But, when I explained about Erica, Carson told me the truth; pneumocystis pneumonia is an AIDS defining infection.

You know, it sounds so neat and tidy when you hear the name, so easy. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. But, once you hear all the symptoms and the associated risk for secondary infection, neurological impairment, malignancies, and all sorts of other nastiness, it's not so neat and easy to think about anymore. It was hard to think of that little brat just dying up there in the back of my class all that time and not telling anyone.

It was Jennifer all over again. I don't think I've ever cried so hard in my life. When Jen died, I hadn't cried. I couldn't. I was so consumed by the thought that you were going to come back, but, after sixteen years of failed attempts at formulating the right math, it all kind of hit me at once. I didn't even hear what Carson was saying on the phone after that, but I got the gist that she was going to need care, stability, a roof over her head, and routine treatment. Basically, she needed to get out from living in the library after hours and into a real home.

Problem was, I didn't know if Erica had any family or friends to help her out. Probably not considering she could bear the smell of the Stacks to sleep there. I mean, if the pneumonia hadn't gotten her, the mold from the 70s still lingering in the Stacks would have eventually. She was all alone. I didn't know if I could even help her out, really.

I just... Losing Jennifer like that had been hard. One of the hardest times of my life. I think the only thing that had gotten me through it the first time was you. I didn't think I could live through something like that a second time, even if it was just a student. But I really couldn't find it in me to just walk away. She was just a kid, and, aside from that, she was a really bright kid. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, you know.

I went back to the hospital the next morning to tell her. I offered Erica a place to stay when she was released from the hospital. She laughed at it and threw it in my face. Told me she wasn't a - and I'm directly quoting on this one - fucking charity case.

And, what can I say, a stroke of classic McKay brilliance hit me. I informed her that she wasn't a charity case. I told her that, if she was going to stay with me, she had to earn her keep. Work for me. Erica, smart as a whip, wanted to know what I could put an- and, again, this is a direct quote- "invalid who can barely get out of bed" to work doing. I needed an assistant in continuing with my research into your predicament, and she needed a place to recover for a while. I tried as best as I could to explain the situation without giving away too much information about the Stargate, constantly calling it a "hypothetical" and "theoretical research," and, even though Erica was still exhausted, she seemed intrigued.

See, that's the thing about genius. Genius hates boredom and bland. That's why she raised so much havoc in so many of her other classes. She didn't have anything else to do that interested her. But I could see the spark in Erica's eyes. Even though she clearly thought I was still thinking of her as charity, I had her attention for the first time. She played it close to the chest, of course, like any great genius would, like I would if faced with the same hypothetical. Erica dismissed it flippantly, as no one had yet developed the technology to produce a stable wormhole, but I knew her mind was turning it over. I left her with my private cell number in case she decided to take me up on my rather chivalrous offer.

Erica and I didn't talk about the offer after that. I kept sneaking into the ICU until they moved her down to a normal room. I tried to get her to lie for me and tell the staff we were related, but Erica had other ideas. She seemed to enjoy me having to risk life and limb going to visit for our little chats. Mostly I did the talking, as usual. She just kind of lie there and stared out the window, like she was listening but not really. I tried another time to bring up my offer, but Erica just skirted the subject like always.

Erica never called me, never requested my presence, but I kept going anyway. So, when she called me to visit her the day she was due to be released, it kind of caught me off guard; she asked me, I kid you not if "this hypothetical situation of someone being launched forty eight thousand years into the future through a time dilation caused by the interaction of a solar flare affecting wormhole travel, was not so-hypothetical."

Erica called me out right then and there.

I didn't know what to say or do at that, aside from telling her the truth. So, I made her a solemn promise that, if she stayed with me, worked as my assistant, I'd explain everything. The whole truth. It's funny. She agreed.

xxxx

John Sheppard trudged back into his guest billeting at Fort Monmouth before tumbling back into bed, feeling utterly sapped of all life and energy. Just acknowledging that fact, even as he struggled to summon the will to kick off his boots sent fresh waves of depression swirling over John. He curled up on his side, one boot on as the other fell to the floor, hugging himself against the black of his heart that threatened to swallow him whole.

He had never meant to hurt Rodney, to shatter their friendship and any loyalty between them, especially not so efficiently and neatly. If anything, John had truly hoped that things would work out differently this time when he sent that damned letter so many years ago. In a way, they had, but nothing like what Sheppard had been hoping for. The things Rodney's holographic counterpart had cautioned against hadn't unfolded in the way he described, and, yet, Sheppard had still attended the solemn funerals for Teyla Emmagen, Colonel Samantha Carter, Ronon Dex, and Dr. Jennifer Keller. He had been hoping, maybe praying somewhere in the back of his mind, that none it would come to pass and, despite what the holographic Rodney McKay had suggested, they could skirt all of horrors in the future.

And, yet, now that he saw Rodney, saw the pasty, pale complexion to a man who, despite all his hypochondria inspired claims of grave illness, looked desperately sick and far older than his years, Sheppard knew. He had seen how frail and delicate Rodney looked, thin and almost emaciated. He didn't need to hear it to confirm anything. Instead, Sheppard just balled up tighter on himself, shuddering and finding not a scrap of comfort to his bed. Sleep eluded him as all Sheppard could see when he closed his eyes was Rodney and how frail the man had looked there, giving the eulogy for a person Sheppard had never met and yet had somehow managed to ruin his life. Sheppard knew the moment he set eyes upon Rodney that it would be soon now.

"This is all my fault."

Sheppard rolled over long enough to pick up his phone and dial a number he hadn't called in years.

xxxx

I took her home that night, back to my place. At the time, I was in an upper floor apartment. Nothing special. But tons of space for me to sprawl and spread my work out. She didn't say much the whole time. Just simple, one word answers. She was tired from being discharged and being sick, so, when we got back, I cleared off a spot on the couch for her to sit so we could talk. I could tell she was exhausted just from the climb up the stairs, but Erica sat and waited patiently for me to explain.

I know you would have killed me Sheppard, but I told her everything. Whole kit-and-kaboodle. The Stargate. Atlantis. The Wraith. Michael. You. Teyla. Sam. Ronon. I even told her the truth about how Jennifer died. Admitted that, despite the fact that it was really a desperate, last ditch effort, that bringing you back to that time was the only way to make the wrong things right, no matter how much people attempted to persuade me otherwise.

Erica was barely staying awake by the end of it, and, for once, I knew it wasn't because I had bored someone to sleep. No. It was a combination of the meds and the pneumonia, but she was listening as best she could in between yawns. I went to show her my progress, but, when I turned around, Erica had already drifted off. I don't know how much of it she actually heard or believed. When you think about it the standard logic of the average American,

A few days went by, and she didn't lift a finger to do any work on the problems. She spent most of the day sleeping still. Her medications knocked her out for the most part. She slept on the couch, no matter how much I tried to convince her to take the bed. Erica just didn't have the strength in her to argue or do much of anything yet.

But she surprised me.

The couch must have been close enough for her to study my work on the white board and computer. Somedays, I'd be working as quiet as possible, sure Erica was out cold, napping, and, if I stopped too long, she'd just pipe up long enough to point me back in the right direction. One morning, after I went out into the living room, I saw she was already working, already plugging away at the problem at hand. She was just sitting a the white board, scrawling out equations on the whiteboard with her right hand, holding a cup of coffee with the left. She even had a cup ready for me. Not a word. Just working. And she had definitely been studying my work judging by the looks of it. Had some good insight into the situation, too.

Erica and I... we worked together on the problem at hand for a few years without any major incident, side by side. A few minor illnesses hear and there. A couple of stays in the hospital, but nothing too terribly long or drawn out. Carson came out once under the oh so clever guise of a friendly visit to make sure I was doing everything right when it came to Erica's health without tipping her off. But, she knew. I could tell she knew. Erica just let Carson and I pretend like she didn't. Carson checked her meds and her schedules, set me up with more information than I could have ever wanted about her and what to do with her in case anything happened. He made a schedule for me so I knew when Erica needed her different pills and which ones. We worked in routine between her medication rotation and my classes, and, when Erica was well enough, she came and sat in as a TA in my lectures and labs.

I didn't know anything about her. She didn't offer, and I didn't ask. We just went on with our lives like there wasn't anything weird about this. Like having a live in assistant, so very professional about things. Always called me Dr. McKay and always insisted I call her Ms. Sahls, like she was keeping distance between us intentionally. She wouldn't even show me what was on that piece of paper she constantly carried around and checked on when she didn't think I was paying attention.

I didn't know how attached I'd gotten to her until it was almost too late. She'd been relatively healthy for a long time, at least, compared to dying in a library. And our daily routine had been pretty well hammered out. I was always kind of waiting for something to happen to her again. I mean, almost twenty years since you were lost without getting any closer to cracking a cure for HIV/AIDS, so I kind of played things very carefully with her, just waiting for the day when she'd get sick again and not come back from the hospital. I dreamt about it, at night, coming home to find her passed out somewhere, or, worse, waking up in the morning to find she'd died in the night. Anytime she got even the slightest bit ill, it was like watching Jennifer. It's funny. I always expected her to be the sick one out of the two of us.

xxxx

It would be so easy. So very easy. All he had to do was put the thing to his temple and end it all. Just surrender himself to the dark, crushing embrace of death.

She had been so very brave at the end. If she could do it, so could he. McKay nodded to himself with that grim resolve as he cocked the firearm and pressed the muzzle to his temple.

_"Through the brainpan. Get it all. No chance of survival. No pain." _McKay reminded himself morosely. _"Just do it."_

His finger quivered over the trigger nervously, as his hand jammed the cold steel harder into his temple. The physicist jerked in surprise, almost squeezing the trigger. Hot tears scalded his cheeks accusingly. McKay screwed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth and trying oh so desperately to pull the trigger, to just end it all.

He was alone now. All alone.

And... he couldn't do it.

McKay shook his head before curling up on the couch in the same spot she had died, dragging the blanket down and snuggling it up to his face, breathing deeply and inhaling her scent mingling with the smell of the rum on his lips. He drew a ragged breath before letting go, a violent, lurching sob wrenching from deep in his chest. McKay cried, harder than he had before, from both the sting of betrayal and the knowledge that he was truly alone now. Anyone he hadn't driven away had either died or turned their backs on him. And it had all been Sheppard's fault. He cried himself out, just pouring it out in a childish outburst that stole what little energy remained after such a tiring, trying day, clutching the Glock and the damned letter close to his chest.

McKay didn't hear it when the phone rang; he had already spent himself on his emotional melt down and slipped into intoxicating, dreamless unconsciousness.

xxxx

If it weren't for Erica, though, you wouldn't be listening to me right now. She was out shopping for some fresh supplies, coffee, food and what-not. I was in between classes and figured I'd stop by the apartment and work on a particularly nasty little bit of theory resolving the interaction of the electromagnetic aspects of a solar flare to the wormhole integrity to make a stable transit for you back to your own time and back to Atlantis without the wormhole collapsing mid journey. It was just another Tuesday -what is it about Tuesdays and things going terribly wrong?

It started when I was writing out an equation. Just a kind of twinge in my arm. I didn't think it was anything, that maybe I had just been writing on a vertical surface for too long. My arms got strained every now and again, and I would switch hands to keep working. It wasn't until I got to the next line that it hit me. You know that tingly feeling when you take a nice, tasty stunner shot to the chest? Your body's down for the count, but your brain just hasn't caught up with that fact yet? Well, that's about what it felt like. It wasn't until I started exhibited Levine's sign- y'know, pressing my fist into my sternum- that I realized what was going on, and, by then, it was all happening too fast for me to do anything.

I got old, Sheppard. And I got careless. I had gotten so wrapped up in you over the years, and keeping an eye on Erica didn't help much either. Myocardial infarction, those voodoo quacks call it. Can you believe it? I ended up having a heart attack right then and there in my own home. Yes, I'd imagine you're thinking to yourself, "No surprise." I mean, I had it coming after all these years and everything with Atlantis and the Wraith, it's true. And it didn't help that I'd stopped taking care of myself.

Before I knew it, I was on the ground and could hardly move. It's a scary feeling, knowing you're all alone and dying. I tried to get to the phone, to call for help. Stupid, am I right? I couldn't get to it, and, even if I could, there was no way I was going to be able to reach it from the floor. I just kind of stayed there and tried to look over my equations. Kept me from just curling up to cry.

That's when Erica came home. I didn't know she'd gotten home at first. Didn't hear her come in, drop the groceries, and call 911. But I did know she was there when she got down and held me close, keeping two fingers on my neck to keep a feel on my pulse. She held me the entire time while we waited for the paramedics, talked to me, kept me conscious and there. But it was more than that. She called me Rodney. Erica never called me Rodney before. I was so surprised, so startled, that it just about stole me away. When the EMTs showed up, finally, Erica insisted she ride with me, told them I was her father. After that, I don't know entirely what happened, they had me doped up so well, but, when I woke up in the hospital, Erica was still with me, holding my hand even as she slept with her head on my bed.

After Atlantis, and Ronon, and, well, you, I couldn't believe that someone would have actually stayed by my side through it all. You know... it's nice to be pleasantly surprised once in a while like that.

xxxx

Dr. Carson Beckett tried calling one more time, wringing his hands in frustration before flopping down onto his couch in annoyance. He had been trying for hours now to get through to Rodney but to no avail. Beckett sighed as he hung up his phone once more, rubbing his temples. He had been hoping to get to see McKay for the funeral, but work had kept him at home in Edinburgh, where the doctor had lived since leaving Atlantis fulltime only to step in for consulting after the Michael incident and his... cloning.

Thus, when Beckett's phone rang, the Scot nearly fell right out of his chair; he answered without even looking at the caller id. "Rodney?"

"No," a familiar voice sad solemnly. "It's Sheppard."

"John?!" Beckett blinked with obvious shock before swallowing to contain his surprise. "John... it's been so long. How've ya been?"

Sheppard didn't answer. "Carson... what's wrong with Rodney?"

The doctor looked down at the floor, despite the fact that he had no gaze to avert, letting out a long sigh. "I take it you saw him?"

"Yes."

"Did you go to the services?" Beckett questioned flatly.

John took a moment before admitting with a heave, "Yes."

The doctor nodded to himself. "Right. How did he look?"

"Like canned ass," Sheppard answered quickly and colorfully but accurately.

"Aye, I'd been expecting that since I heard the news," the Scot whispered in his lilting brogue. "I'd been hoping he would be taking better care of himself, but, ta be honest, I'm not in the slightest bit surprised."

"Doc, tell me what's wrong with him," John ordered in that stern, authoritative way of his.

Beckett frowned. "John... I think you need to hear it from Rodney."

xxxx

Erica took me home a week later under stern orders of bed rest and a new diet. She took care of me, better care than I had taken of her. I didn't know it, but, while I was in the hospital and the nurses threw her out at night, Erica had gone home to "fix up the place." She cleaned the living room and reorganized to get my computer and a whiteboard by the bed, knowing I'd want to work still. There were theoretical physics books piled beside the bed for light reading like _What Do You Care What the Other People Think? _and some Brian Greene. She dumped all the food that wasn't on my diet and brought in all sorts of healthy-heart-conscious stuff- and stuff that actually tasty pretty decent. And, best of all, she had gotten a big supply of blue jello- like, a year's worth at least. _And_, just like I'd put her on a steady regime, she did the same thing for me.

The first night home, I couldn't sleep. She kept checking in on me, so I told her to come and sit with me, to tell me a story. Erica told me about herself. As it turns out, my dear friend Erica Sahls confided that she had no family, that she had never known a father but that her mother had died long ago. Her mother was HIV positive when she was pregnant with Erica, and what family in this world wants to adopt a kid with that kind of a problem? She ran away from child and family services in high school. A rebel without applause, Erica called herself. That is, until she got a letter in the mail and access to a small trust fund in her name. She showed me the letter once. Just... not what was in it. Claimed it was important and had put her on a very specific path. She had this weird look in her eyes when she told me that, and when she told me that she was glad that it had, because it gave her a real dad.

I told her more about Atlantis. I dare say I waxed poetic about it. You know how the city was. You saw how the lights kind of danced on the water at night and how it just shimmered like silver in the afternoon. Just beautiful. I missed Atlantis, dearly, the old Atlantis before you were lost. She told me she'd love to see it one day, despite how impossible it might have been considering the IOAs and SGCs current opinion of me and that fact that neither party would have approved of me briefing a civilian like Erica on the place. She told me to dream about it. Funny thing- usually, when I dreamt about Atlantis, I was dreaming about the Wraith. This time, I dreamt about taking her there, introducing her to everyone, showing her the sights. Y'know. Dad stuff.

After I recovered, she and set back into serious work, side by side, as equal partners and more. Erica treated me like her father, and she... she really was like a daughter to me after that. We took care of each other, worked together, watched movies, the works. She wasn't such a bad kid. She just... she just had the unfortunate luck of being born into really god-awful circumstances.

We got close through the years, like family, but we weren't getting any closer to fixing your problem. Jeannie actually liked Erica. Said she was a positive female influence on my life. Said that having a child actually seemed to do me wonders.

Erica came with me to Jeannie's for Christmas a few years after we met. The two of them worked wonders in the kitchen. She even forced Jeannie to make blue jello just for me since cookies, cakes and pies were off my rather strictly enforced diet thanks to Erica. And her present for me? She had been working on incorporating Asgard mathematics to predicting solar flares of the Lantean sun, wrapped up in number paper with a big bow. It wasn't complete, but it was close. And my present for her? I had already asked Jeannie's blessing to legally adopt Erica and make it official.

She didn't take it quite the way I had hoped she would. Erica wasn't a minor anymore, so I wouldn't hold any legal sway over her. She could do what she wanted. I just... I guess I guest wanted her to have a family, to have a father. I think I wanted a daughter, y'know? I though she would appreciate it. Instead, she got angry at me and didn't say a word for the rest of the night.

She waited until we were in the car and on the way home to say anything.

It was snowing. I remember that very clearly, because it was weird. The radio was playing all those tacky Christmas songs that are overplayed all December long. It was... surreal and pretty. Big, chunky snowflakes.

She said she didn't want to be a burden, that she didn't want me to adopt her because I felt like I was obligated to. She told me she wouldn't be a part of this sick game of mine and whoever my "little friends" were. She started saying something about a letter, but I wasn't listening.

I bickered with her. Told her she wasn't a burden, that I was doing this because I wanted to and...

I never saw it coming.

I was too busy being mad at Erica and her stubbornness. Although, I was being equally as childish.

Sheppard, you once told me, when your chopper went down, that everything went in slow motion, like you had all the time in the world to do something- anything to stop it, but you just couldn't. It was just like that. I heard Erica beside me, but she didn't scream.

Canadian winters... are tricky. They're wet, cold, freezing. Horrible weather. You have to know how to drive in them just right. It's not like snow or ice in any other place. It's weird. I hadn't driven up there in ages, but Erica had insisted that we take the drive up, saying she had never gone on any long roadtrips in her life.

A tractor trailer coming towards us hit a patch of black ice. It jack-knifed. And everything happened so fast. It didn't feel like it. It felt like... like eternity. The truck was coming at us, and it was honking. It was so loud. And I just... I froze up. I couldn't think. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything except just watch it coming at us like a freight train. I tried to get out of the way, but there wasn't enough time.

There's never enough time, is there Sheppard?

I don't know what happened next. I woke in the car next to her, and she was making these awful noises. I tried to help her. And there was blood. So much blood. It was all over everything. I just... I wasn't thinking. I didn't check to see if it was hers or mine. I just... I wanted to help her. I wanted her to be alright. And she was just staring at me with those big, blue eyes of hers.

I must have been reaching for her, or touching her, or I don't know, because I remember her telling me no, not to touch her.

There was water all around us. It was flowing over our heads like a river through the car. I didn't know where it was coming from. When I looked to Erica again, her ponytail was hanging upside down. I couldn't figure it out at the time, I was too stunned to think straight. But we were upside down and in a small creek in the base of a steep gully.

I must have passed out or something, because, the next thing I know, I'm in the hospital.

The cops tell us that the trucker was at fault one hundred percent for going down a steep grade too fast before hitting the ice. After the jack knife, I must have, I don't know, maybe I tried to swerve around it. The investigators and the trucker said it looked like I tried to, but the rear end of the trailer clipped my Atlima and sent it off the road. They said we rolled once into a gully before landing in the stream. Thankfully, it was shallow but, between the water and the snow and cold, Erica and I were going into hypothermia by the time they were able to pull us from the Altima.

We weren't too badly hurt, all things considered. Erica had broken her leg and gotten a concussion when the car rolled to her side. I had a couple of busted ribs from- in what has to be a terribly dire stroke of irony- the airbag. But, the thing was, we'd both been cut up badly. Severe lacerations is what I think Carson liked to call it when you came waltzing into the infirmary looking like we did.

But Erica... it was like it was too much for her. She just... she never got back to tip top shape after that. She thought it was her fault. After all, if she hadn't been arguing with me... maybe then I wouldn't. But, no. The truck still would have jack knifed whether we were arguing or not, and we still would have ended up in that ditch. Erica just wouldn't hear any of it.

And me... well... yeah.

xxxx

John dialed the number again and again, to no answer. He knew it to be Rodney's working number, courtesy of Dr. Carson Beckett. The Scot had reluctantly admitted to having been in close contact with the physicist over the last few months, while still dodging the overall reason of why. Beckett told Sheppard he was smart enough to figure it out on his own even if Rodney didn't tell him.

"Damnit, Rodney," Sheppard growled under his breath.

When Beckett had told him that their once colleague hadn't been answering his phone calls all afternoon, Sheppard had tried... for hours. He seriously doubted that Rodney would answer and be chipper about the situation. Yet, Sheppard had been hoping that, after the first few dozen rings, McKay's short temper would get the best of him and he would end up picking up the phone if only to curse out Sheppard. When McKay didn't, Sheppard felt his heart tremble, his mind racing with all the possibilities of horrible things that could have befallen his former friend in the last few hours.

With a sigh, Sheppard kicked off the bed and grabbed his boots.

xxxx

The doctors were concerned that, with all the blood contact between Erica and I after the accident, that I might have contracted the virus from her. The did all kinds of tests, put me on the triple cocktail. The first test came back negative, and we both thought I'd skirted disaster. One small stroke of luck after years and years of terrible misfortune.

C'mon, you have _got _to admit, I have dismal luck, Sheppard. I mean, Russia. Blowing up an entire star system. That whole Second Childhood thing. Sinking jumpers. Yeah. We were thinking that, maybe, after all that, some good luck finally came my way, don't you know?

When we finally got back home, Erica's health was starting to slip again. She was taking her meds, keeping up with the program, the schedule, but she just wasn't getting any better. She started getting sick again, on and off. She kept working with me, but less and less. She spent more time sick or sleeping. She got feverish. We ended up back in the hospital maybe two or three weeks after we left. Doctors said a secondary infection from an impaired immune system due to the break and the virus. I sat with her wouldn't let any of the damned nurses shoo me out until they brought security with them. I wanted to stay the night with her, but they wouldn't listen to me.

I wasn't family. I had to leave, but, the next morning, I brought everything I needed with me, including a lawyer. She had that damned folded up letter with her, closed it when my little parade burst into the room. I was well prepared to argue with Erica for hours over it... but she didn't. She agreed. In fact, she wanted more than just adoption this time. The lawyer arranged everything. Adoption. Power of attorney should anything happen to either of us. And, before all else, a do not resuscitate order. I tried to talk her out of the last one, but Erica had made up her mind. She said the accident had been too close of a call for either of us. She didn't want me risking infection again, and she didn't want to spend her last days on a respirator. She wanted to die at home and still working on the problem with you, if possible.

I agreed.

It took a month this time for her to be well enough to come home. But, when she did, Erica worked like a woman possessed on the situation. It was like she knew there wasn't much time left, like she had to make every day count when it came to solving the problem and getting you back. She had her on days and her off days.

After a few months, though, her off days were turning into weeks.

And me? Well, by the first time I started to get really ill, I already knew. The doctors had told me it might happen. They said that, sometimes, the early tests come back clean but later tests might confirm the virus. I was supposed to go back in three, six, twelve, and twenty four months just to be safe. I didn't bother after the first time. I didn't... I didn't want Erica to have anymore on her mind than necessary. It wasn't fair to her.

When I got really sick and refused to go to the hospital or let her call 911, Erica called Carson. He had her put me on the phone, but I was too out of it to really talk. In the end, Carson convinced me to go to the ER. The docs patched me up over a couple of days and helped me come up with a really creative lie for Erica, as she was starting to slip again after not taking proper care of herself those days.

Not too long later, Carson came for a visit. He begged me to just tell her the truth, but I couldn't. Not when she started getting sick again, this time worse than ever. I tried to get Carson to take her to the hospital like she had done for me, but Erica wasn't listening. And the DNR was perfectly clear.

I... I asked Carson to stay for a while, but you know him. With two patients in as sad of shape as we were, Carson wasn't going anywhere even before I asked him to hang around. I... I didn't think I could just sit with her and watch her die as she started to drift between good days and bad more frequently.

Carson made her comfortable and taught me how.

He stayed as long as he could.

xxxx

"Rodney!"

It hadn't taken very long to get to Rodney's apartment. Not long at all. Fort Monmouth lie perhaps five or ten minutes from the heart of downtown Red Bank where Rodney had his apartment. After that, it had been a matter of finding a parking spot in all the choked commuter lots and finding the exact location. As it was, Rodney's apartment was on the uppermost floor of one of the buildings right in the middle of Red Bank at the corner of Broad and Front, no trouble to find once Sheppard got himself situated. Then, he bolted up the stairs, pounding on the door to be let in.

There was no answer.

John reared back, raising his foot, and planting a driving kick to the lock of the door. The thing gave with hardly any effort, flying inward with a jolting slam. He rushed in, at the ready for anything but the sight that greeted him. Rodney sprawled upon the couch, one hand curled about an old blanket and the other hand gripping a tattered piece of paper that, even after all these years, John Sheppard knew all too well along with a Glock.

Sheppard ran to McKay's side. He grabbed the pistol and threw it away before reaching for a pulse. Thankfully found one as McKay shifted and moaned.

"Rodney..."

A set of bleary eyes blinked, looking up at him before narrowing. "Get out."

"Rodney, are you okay?"

A tear rolled down McKay's gaunt cheek. "I said, 'Get out.'"

"You weren't answering Carson's or my calls, we were worried," John explained, still holding his ground.

"Jus' get out," McKay drunkenly and rather belligerently slurred.

John leaned in close, close enough to smell the alcohol on his once friend's breath. "Rodney... have you been drinking?"

"Pft. Can't drink much of anything anymore. Can't do anything..." McKay trailed off as another large tear streamed down his pale face and he shuddered to stifle a sob.

Sheppard reached to put an arm about his friend, but Rodney just weakly tried to bat it away. John shook his head and grabbed McKay, pulling him closer just before the physicist broke down entirely. He held McKay, squeezing tightly about the boney form, afraid he might shake himself apart.

"Why?" McKay whispered between sobs. "Why did you do it to us?"

John just rubbed his friend's back as reassuringly as possible as swallowed a lump in his throat. "I'm so sorry Rodney."

xxxx

I couldn't take Beckett to the airport. I called him a cab and waited with him, but I couldn't leave Erica alone. She was my daughter now, in every way that mattered. I couldn't leave her, just in case she did die. Carson bid his farewells and even said a quiet goodbye with Erica. He gave me instructions, warnings for what it would be like when she did get close and when she did finally just... go, probably from an upper respiratory infection at the rate she was going.

She hung on for another few weeks. Some days, she was lucid. Other days, she didn't wake up. I... I tried. I really tried John. I tried so damned hard to keep her alive. I did everything... but I couldn't. She was just... she was tired.

Then, there was this day when she could hardly breath, couldn't eat, couldn't drink. Nothing stayed down no matter how hard we tried. After a while, Erica... she... she didn't want to try anymore. She just... she wanted to sleep. I... I called Carson. It was the only thing I could think of to do at the time.

Carson told me it would be soon now.

S-she... she hung on for a day or so after that, taking ice chips from me to keep her tongue and mouth wet. I read to her, talked to her, told her stories from Pegasus. Anything to keep from thinking about her... dying.

She seemed better that morning. More lucid and together. More aware of things and myself. She told me to get her things and find the letter. Said it was time for me to know the truth. She handed me the letter, told me to read it, but I couldn't read it then. I just... I didn't care. It didn't matter what the letter said to put her in my classroom that day so many years ago. The truth was she was dying, and I didn't care about anything else except for her at that moment.

I fell asleep early that night after both of our meds rounds. She... she... I'm sorry... she must have gotten up to work. She must have found some little bit of strength in her arm left. She finished the flare prediction equations in the night. When I woke up... she was dead and cold already, just kind of staring at the whiteboard, pen in her hand, equations on her lap, and a little smirk on her face, as if to say she'd gotten her way in the end.

I had her cremated the next day. When I finished the programs and the math for the wormhole interaction, when I asked to go back to Atlantis, I took her ashes with me, along with the letter. She always wanted to see Atlantis. It was the only thing I could do for her. Once the programs were uploaded and everything arranged, I... I poured her off the east pier at sunrise. And, then, I got out the letter.

Oh, Sheppard, how could you?

I read the letter. Every word of it. Saved the damned thing, too, even after she died.

xxxx

Sheppard held Rodney for a long time as the man cried in his arms. Sheppard had never been very good at comforting people. And Rodney? Rodney had never been the best at expressing his emotions in a controlled or appropriate manner. He felt so tiny in Sheppard's arm, worn and almost ragged in a way that John could never explain fully. He just sat there with Rodney until his sobs became lurching, rough breathes and his body slowly stilled to a tremble.

"Why?" the physicist whispered. "Why didn't you do something to stop it?"

John shook his head. "I tried."

"You didn't try hard enough."

Sheppard sighed heavily. "I did. I swear I did. But you told me not to... that it was wrong."

"She's dead, Sheppard. My daughter is dead. And you could have stopped this." McKay drew another breath, shivering as he did. "You already knew how things were going to happen. You could have changed things."

"I tried... the letter," John breathed softly.

"Yes, that damned letter," Rodney snarled into Sheppard's shirt, gripping his friend tighter to him.

"It was supposed to be different. I didn't want this to happen. I'm sorry, Rodney. I'm so sorry." Sheppard blinked back his own tears at his complete and utter failure. "I'm sorry..." John looked to the table and found the envelope he'd given Rodney after the funeral. "I wanted to tell you. I wanted to show you..." Sheppard pawed at the envelope to pull a data crystal from Atlantis. "It's here."

Rodney nodded weakly and timidly but took the chip in his hands. "What is it?"

John shook his head solemnly. "Just watch it."

xxxx

Sheppard, if you're listening to this, this means that our work, all of us- Erica, Jeannie, myself, all those poor, pathetic, sniveling little students looking for extra credit- worked out. I've programmed this small portion of the holographic memories of Rodney McKay to include this message for you if, and only if, you should be returned to the correct time and if the program detected Teyla's lifesigns in Atlantis, indicating a potential shift in the timeline.

I should have warned you before attempting this. See, aside from getting lucky a couple of times, no one has tried to target a specific time with the Stargate to travel to. Nor did I really have the time to test this theory. However, since I'm talking to you this means that it did work.

The only issue is now, whether the timeline will shift altogether. See, there's a couple of theories since no one can confirm that time travel exists, well up until you since you're actually bringing something back with you. I won't bore you with details. One theory says that, when you get back, this version of the timeline will cease to exist. Another suggests that both of these timelines will exist parallel to one another. One suggests that we'll be stuck in a cyclical pattern. I don't know.

Either way, here I am.

I've automated the program to install its self in ten minutes, just in case time isn't cyclical or branching and this instance of me ceases to exist after that. I mean, if that's the case, you'll be instantly back at the right time and everything should slam onto the correct time line. At least, in theory.

There is a chance, however, a good chance, that you'll still need to help things along from your time.

If that's the case, Sheppard, you need to find Erica Sahls and put her on the path you put her on in this lifetime. You need to set her up a trust. All the associated history from what I could gather of Erica and the trust fund is on the files you will take with you from here when the computer me sends you back to your rightful time. Without her fine-tuned flare predictions for the Lantean sun, you'll never make it back to Atlantis in time to save Teyla, or possible ever.

And, much as I hate to say this, you have to do it, John, even if I hate you for it, because, oh, god, will I hate you for it. I know it'll be hard. And I might be a complete ass for it, but you have to do it John. For you. For me. For Teyla, Ronon, and everyone, just in case this works out to be cyclical. And for Erica. She... she never deserved that.

Well... I guess that's it. Whole kit-and-kaboodle. I'm going to go watch what might be my last Lantean sunset ever. You know how pretty they are. Romantic maybe.

I guess this is what it feels like to be sitting at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, y'know? The whole timeline could cave in when this installs. It's kind of creepy when you think about it. Kind of frightening. But kind of delicious and incredible at the same time. I don't quite know what will happen after this installs, but I have a good feeling about it. Either way, I'll be with my wife and daughter soon.

It won't be long now.

This is Doctor Rodney McKay, signing off.

xxxx

John stared horrified at the holographic version of the elderly Rodney McKay as it faded from existence. He had grown somewhat attached to an old Rodney McKay, even if the image had seemed tired yet happily resigned to its lot in life. He had wondered those long hours 48,000 years in the future, waiting for the sandstorm to die down, if Keller's death couldn't possibly have been the only thing of import to happen in Rodney's life to give him that look, those fine lines about his face that weren't entirely from age. Teyla had been back in Atlantis for a week now, rescued from Michael, and, when he went to bed down that night, the hologram had activated its self, recounting the complete history of Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay after Atlantis.

And, yet, just down the hall, he knew Rodney was working on some project in the labs, probably swearing at other scientists as Radek probably swore back in Czech. Sam was likely in her office, safe and sound, reviewing reports. He knew Teyla and Ronon were training, probably sparring. And Keller was likely running another inventory of supplies with the _Daedalus _so close to arrival. They were all safe, sound, and healthy. He had changed things, everything.

Yet, something nagged at John's mind after the message ended. He sat for a moment in silence, unsure of what to do know that he knew the truth, that the Rodney he knew from a future instance would die, one way or the other, painfully and slowly, most likely. And, somehow, knowing that, if Rodney didn't, if he hadn't met Erica Sahls, if he hadn't gotten... infected, John wouldn't be back in time. All for everything and everything for nothing.

Sheppard made his choice. He rose with work to do, paperwork to fill out before the _Daedalus _made its next run to Earth and back.

First, he put pen to paper.

xxxx

Erica Sahls didn't appreciate a joke. Especially not nearly as sick of a joke as this one. In fact, it was so diabolical and in such poor taste, that she had to go. She left the home, packed up, pulled some money from her supposed trust, shocked that there was actually money there for an AIDS kid, and wandered to New Jersey. She had to know the truth, to see it with her own two eyes. She spent a couple of months in Jersey getting settled and attending classes before finding the right one.

She walked into the lecture hall just in time to see a soft, rounded man, who looked a bit too worn for his not too terribly old age, enter and begin to scrawl his name on the board. Erica cocked an eyebrow at the name he began to write out as the students clamored about the class, shuffling seats at desks and getting out pens and paper. Erica retrieved neither. Instead, she took out a book and the rather curious bookmark she had been carrying ever since it had arrived at the home and propped her feet up on the desk, garnering a little huff from the teacher.

First rule of engagement with the enemy: walk in like you own the place and you will when you walk out.

"Good morning," the professor greeted, still writing on the board. "This is Physics 101 : An Introduction to Physics and Newtonian Mechanics, Section 800RL. If you are not registered for this class nor capable of basic algebra, might I guest you spare yourself my ire and your tuition by getting out now and being sure to get a refund at the registrar." When no one moved the man shrugged. "Suit yourself. But be forewarned, you have until tomorrow to drop the course for a full refund. After Friday, there will be no refunds."

Erica shook her head at the professor's brazen attitude as he paced almost bitterly across the front of the class for a moment. She carefully peeled the folded piece of paper in her hands open, as inconspicuously as possible. Erica's eyes flicked across the scrawled, barely legible excuse of handwriting, back and forth between the letter and the professor. It seemed difficult to believe that the pompous, arrogant prick of a man at the base of the lecture hall was the man the strange greeting referred to.

"Right then," the professor said smugly. "My name is Dr. Rodney McKay. You will call me Dr. McKay and nothing else, as it is _your _job to earn _my _respect, and not the other way around." The professor began to hand out both his contact information and the syllabus as he started his lecture. "We're going to start out nice and easy with simple projectile motion and move on from there."

Erica's gaze dropped tot he letter in her hands.

_To Ms. Erica Sahls:_

_My name is John Sheppard, and, even though we've never met, I know a lot about you. You might not believe me, but I really do know a lot about you. I know that you read, maybe too much. I know that you're smart, maybe too smart for your own good. I'm told you're a damned genius. I know that your mom and dad are dead, and I know that you're alone out there in the world facing something really intimidating by yourself._

_Look, I _know _you're not going to believe this. I still don't know if I believe this. _

_See, I was just sent 48,000 years into the future. _

_Kind of crazy, isn't it?_

_I'm not sure I understand it yet. There are these things called Stargates that create wormholes between two planets and allow for instantaneous travel across space. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, it's true. A solar flare did something to the wormhole I was traveling through, and it sent me to the future. Y'know... I really don't know how to explain that or make any sense of it. Just, trust me on it. _

_I'm setting up a trust in your name for your school, your housing, everything you need, and it's all yours so long as you do me one thing. Just one, simple thing. You stay away from Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay and New Jersey. I can't explain why, but you need to. Let's just say the future depends on it and all that mystic crap. I've been there, I've seen it, and it's not pretty. So, just stay away._

_-J. Sheppard._

"Now... can anyone tell me what physics is?" McKay prompted, drawing Erica's attention from the slip of paper as she stuffed it back in between the pages of her book. He looked desperately to the class for some sign of life before answering himself. "Well, I suppose not, or else you would be teaching the class, and I would be sitting out there..."

As Erica Sahls listened to the professor on, she smirked to herself, thinking, _"Never tell a genius they _can't _do something."_

**XXXX**

**Author's Notes: **Sorry for everyone else who's been following my other stories. I needed a break from my other stories and went back to work on a couple of old oneshots, including this old tag to "The Last Man." This one is actually better than the others that it hit the trashbin with, if you can get past the shifting timeframes and the recollections of Rodney, as well as if you can get past the angst factor.

I hope you enjoyed (since I was always kind of curious myself how Rodney spent that time working out what to do about John being thousands of years in the future; plus, I've always been kind of enthralled with the Grandfather Paradox.)


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